WotC wrote:Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron (5e)
From Wizards of the Coast

Eberron was born in 2002 when Wizards of the Coast launched a worldwide search for a new campaign setting.

Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron brings the eponymous campaign setting to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, providing an overview of the core themes of the setting and the rules to connect them to current campaigns. It explores the continent of Khorvaire and the great city of Sharn. Herein awaits a fantastical sampling of what this setting has to offer, as well as hooks for compelling adventures of your own design.

Particularly useful is a list of sources for learning more about Eberron.

Eberron was born sixteen years ago. It’s been eight years since I’ve been able to write new material, and in that time I’ve worked on many things… Illimat. Action Cats. Even another roleplaying game, Phoenix: Dawn Command. But in all that time, my heart’s still been in Eberron. And now Eberron has come to fifth edition.

The Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron is now available on the DM’s Guild. It’s a PDF product, and it’s treated as Unearthed Arcana material. This is Eberron as I’m playing it at my table. The goal is of the book is to give you everything you need to start running Eberron at your table… but also to test these ideas and get your feedback on them.

So what is the Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron? I’ll start by telling you what it’s not, and that’s a rehash of either the Eberron Campaign Setting or the Eberron Campaign Guide. Both of those books are available on the DM’s Guild, and it seemed foolish to lead off with a book that simply repackages information many of you already have. The WGtE isn’t an encyclopedia. It doesn’t delve deeply into history or geography. Instead it talks about the themes of Eberron, the things that define the setting, and how these can affect your game. How can you capture the feel of pulp adventure or neo-noir intrigue? What impact could the Last War have on your character or your campaign?

The Wayfinder’s Guide includes the following things.

New versions of changelings, kalashtar, shifters, and warforged, along with information and ideas about how the common races fit into Eberron. If you’re a Mror dwarf, why did you leave the Holds? if you’re a Zil gnome, what schemes are you caught up in?

An overview of Khorvaire with a focus on ideas for characters and NPCs from each nation.

Rules for dragonmarks, the mystical sigils that play an important role in the setting. This includes greater dragonmarks and aberrant dragonmarks.

A selection of unique magic items, including dragonshards, warforged component items, and new arcane focuses for your wandslinger.

An overview of Sharn, City of Towers with a focus on getting you started with your character or your story. This includes a host of interesting background hooks and story ideas, along with three separate starting points for different styles of campaign… including the gritty Callestan campaign I’m running at home!

The Wayfinder’s Guide is written for both players and DMs. It doesn’t give away any of the deep secrets of the world, but it’s designed to serve as an inspiration both for creating characters and adventures… and I’ll just say that there’s a lot of ideas squeezed into those 140 pages.

What Happens Next?

Eberron has been unlocked for the DM’s Guild. I’m currently working on the Morgrave’s Miscellany with guild adept & Inkwell Society creator Ruty Rutenberg (who collaborated on the dragonmarks and races for the WG). The Miscellany will delve into a range of subjects that didn’t make it into the Wayfinder’s Guide, including Siberys Dragonmarks and some classic Eberron archetypes. Beyond that, there’s a host of topics I’ve been wanting to explore for years now: the Planes of Eberron, Droaam, Darguun, Eberron Underwater, and more. I’ll get to all of these things and more; it’s a question of when. I’ve posted a poll here, on my Patreon site; you don’t have to be a patron to vote on it. Let me know what you want to see first!

In addition to writing new material for Eberron, I want to get back to another project that’s been on a back burner for a long time. Back in 2009—before the age of Kickstarter and Patreon—I bootstrapped something I called Have Dice Will Travel. I roamed around the world running an Eberron game for interesting groups of people. I wrote about a few of my adventures for The Escapist, but lack of funding and a creative collaborators caused it to fizzle out. Now with crowdfunding, new support for Eberron, and my partnership with Jenn Ellis and our company Twogether Studios, we’re exploring different ways to bring back Have Dice Will Travel.

We don’t yet know exactly what form this will take. A travel/D&D podcast? A book? Both? What we do know is that we want to capture the diverse people around the world who play RPGs and tell their stories. If you want to make sure you get the latest news, join the Twogether Studios mailing list. And if you feel that you have a particularly interesting gaming group or town we might want to visit on our tour, follow this link and tell us about it!

That’s all for now. Thank you for joining me in this return to Eberron. I look forward to seeing what all of you do with the world!

Notable additions include Warforged subraces (including Scout and the new Envoy), and Dragonmarks as subraces of sorts (Dragonmarked lose some racial bonus and get Dragonmark powers instead, which can be improved with a feat later on).

Returned Maztica - a new vision for Maztica in the 5th Edition era of the Forgotten Realms! Learn how the continent has changed after invasions and dragonfire, and take part as the people of Maztica finally take their destinies into their own hands!

Hopefully, I can clarify with my understanding of what this product is based on conversations with Keith.

This is both a prototype for WotC to test approaches to Eberron as well as a product of Keith's version of Eberron. It also is a vehicle for unlocking Eberron in the DMs Guild with WotC understanding that's what customers have been wanting.

So why a paid product? Because it's Keith's personal work in collaboration with a few others. This is Keith's product, not WotC's.

WotC is working with Keith to develop Eberron in a more finalized state, and these ideas Keith has presented is that starting point. Eberron is a very different animal from other settings. Dragonmarks once depended on feats, but in 5e feats are much rarer if used at all. Eberron also has its own cosmology, so defining how that fits with the rest of the multiverse required some thought exercises. Also keep in mind that the mystic and artificer have yet to be finalized as well, although Mike Mearls has mentioned the latter is coming soon in an updated UA. [UA only, still not official.]

Consider, too, that there are two levels of official.
1) Official for D&D Beyond and DM's Guilde
2) Official for Adventurers League

Hans anyone bought this yet? I have lots of 3E Eberron stuff but confess that I haven't read all of it and am NOT at all an expert on the setting, so the prospect of an "Eberron for Noobs" PDF has a certain appeal to it. I just hate to part with $20 if it's not a great product. It would be one thing if this was a Print+PDF, but $20 for just the PDF sight-unseen worries me a little.

Hans anyone bought this yet? I have lots of 3E Eberron stuff but confess that I haven't read all of it and am NOT at all an expert on the setting, so the prospect of an "Eberron for Noobs" PDF has a certain appeal to it. I just hate to part with $20 if it's not a great product. It would be one thing if this was a Print+PDF, but $20 for just the PDF sight-unseen worries me a little.

The document is a work in progress. Not balanced yet. The 20$ is for early access and the possibility to play test and give input for the final product.

Hans anyone bought this yet? I have lots of 3E Eberron stuff but confess that I haven't read all of it and am NOT at all an expert on the setting, so the prospect of an "Eberron for Noobs" PDF has a certain appeal to it. I just hate to part with $20 if it's not a great product. It would be one thing if this was a Print+PDF, but $20 for just the PDF sight-unseen worries me a little.

Welp, I was kind of hoping Eberron would get an actual physical book, but this is pretty close. I'm not in the market of course, but I probably would be interested if I were of the moneyed persuasion these days.

I think that it will get a physical book, but a Print on Demand instead of a hardback. My understanding is that the PoD option isn't engaged yet because this is still under revision and classified "playtest" material, but the PDF will get updated occasionally and when it is done the PoD option will be put into place.

I think that it will get a physical book, but a Print on Demand instead of a hardback. My understanding is that the PoD option isn't engaged yet because this is still under revision and classified "playtest" material, but the PDF will get updated occasionally and when it is done the PoD option will be put into place.

It will get a POD option when it's finalized. And WotC will produce it's own print product eventually. These two products will serve different purposes.

Additionally, POD options can include hardcover, so being POD doesn't necessarily mean that it won't be available as a hardcover.

Hans anyone bought this yet? I have lots of 3E Eberron stuff but confess that I haven't read all of it and am NOT at all an expert on the setting, so the prospect of an "Eberron for Noobs" PDF has a certain appeal to it. I just hate to part with $20 if it's not a great product. It would be one thing if this was a Print+PDF, but $20 for just the PDF sight-unseen worries me a little.

As far as it possibly not being a great product, it was written and designed by Keith Baker with Ruty Rutenberg of Maze Arcana as co-designer and the WotC design team as consultants and advisors. Your $20 will grant you access to updates based on feedback as they're made, including the final version.